The Sidekick's Divorce Attorney

• Chapter 1 Invisibility Clauses and Hidden Assets
• Chapter 2 Who Keeps the Lair?
• Chapter 3 Custody of the Boy Wonder
• Chapter 4 Piercing the Cape: Piercing the Corporate Veil
• Chapter 5 Secret Identities in the Public Record
• Chapter 6 Splitting the Super-Cruiser Down the Middle
• Chapter 7 Unmasking Undisclosed Income
• Chapter 8 Mind Control as Grounds for Annulment
• Chapter 9 Prenuptial Agreements in the Multiverse
• Chapter 10 Restraining Orders Against Super-Speed Stalking
• Chapter 11 The Cryo-Stasis Freeze on Liquid Assets
• Chapter 12 Sidekick Spousal Support
• Chapter 13 Alien DNA and Paternity Tests
• Chapter 14 The Hero Complex in Mediation
• Chapter 15 Telepathic Eavesdropping and Attorney-Client Privilege
• Chapter 16 Dividing the Trophy Room
• Chapter 17 Henchmen as Subpoena Servers
• Chapter 18 Fortress of Solitude or Marital Residence?
• Chapter 19 Alternate Timelines and Bigamy Charges
• Chapter 20 Valuing Intellectual Property: Gadgets and Gimmicks
• Chapter 21 The Arch-Nemesis Character Witness
• Chapter 22 Collateral Damage and Marital Debt
• Chapter 23 Truth Serums in the Deposition Room
• Chapter 24 The Non-Compete Patrol Clause
• Chapter 25 Final Judgment Day
• Chapter 26 Dissolution of the Dynamic Duo

The sign on my frosted-glass door reads Arthur P. Pendelton, Esq., Family Law & Domestic Relations. It does not mention mutations, radioactive accidents, or billionaire vigilantes who process their childhood trauma by wearing fireproof ballistic weave. The municipal bar association does not offer a sub-specialty in metahuman marital dissolution, mostly because half the city council pretends heroes don’t bleed, cheat, or stash off-the-books royalties in offshore shell companies registered to dead monarchs from the Silver Age. But they do. Human or superhuman, everyone eventually argues about money.

My ten o’clock was Arthur "Artie" Vance, better known to the evening tabloids and the tri-county emergency dispatch as Kid Kinetic. Artie was thirty-four years old now, slightly balding beneath a messy swoop of sandy hair, and wearing an off-the-rack navy suit that looked like he had bought it for a court appearance, which he had. Across the mahogany desk, he nervously rotated a ceramic coffee mug between hands that could, if he dropped his focus for a microsecond, vibrate through solid steel.

"She’s declaring twenty-two thousand dollars in annual income, Arthur," Artie said, his voice fluttering with the slight sonic hum that accompanied his stress. "Twenty-two thousand. She claims her only revenue is from public appearances at the West End Community Center and an occasional honorarium from the Parks Commission for clearing fallen debris after thunder storms."

"And your wife's official alias?" I asked, flipping through a freshly opened blue folder stamped with an urgent red CONFIDENTIAL seal.

"Mirage. Well, Madame Mirage now. She dropped the 'Miss' right after our third anniversary." Artie shook his head, looking down at his knuckles. "I knew she was secretive. Arthur, when you marry a woman whose primary biological mutation is light refraction, you expect a certain level of vagueness regarding where she was on Tuesday evening. But the forensic accountant you hired? Mr. Henderson? He says our joint accounts are missing three point four million dollars."

"Three point four two, actually," I corrected, tapping a pencil against the ledger sheet Henderson had slipped into my hand an hour before the meeting. "And that doesn’t account for the foreign trust in Grand Cayman registered under the name Prism HoldCo LLC, which lists its corporate director as an entity named ‘Spectra Void.’ Who, coincidentally, uses the same post office box in Delaware that your wife utilized to register her proprietary reflective fabric line four years ago."

Artie looked up, his jaw slack. "She told me that line went bankrupt because the supply chain from Taiwan collapsed."

"It didn’t collapse. It rerouted to an account in Vaduz, Liechtenstein," I said gently. "Mr. Vance, your wife has executed what we in the trade call an aggressive asset cloaking strategy. In conventional divorce proceedings, a spouse might hide a bass boat in their brother-in-law’s garage or underreport cash tips from a second job. When dealing with an individual capable of bending photons and manipulating ambient electromagnetic spectrums, the tactics evolve, but the underlying statute does not. Fraudulent conveyance is fraudulent conveyance, whether you do it with a corrupt notary or an optical distortion field."

The door to my outer office clicked shut, followed by the muffled, polite greetings of my receptionist, Mrs. Gable. A moment later, the intercom on my desk buzzed twice.

"Mr. Pendelton?" Mrs. Gable’s dry voice came through the speaker. "The opposing counsel has arrived. Along with the opposing party. And... well, I believe she is present, though I can only verify the coat hangers moving in the foyer."

"Send them in, please," I said. "And Mrs. Gable? Turn on the ceiling fan on the highest setting. It helps track atmospheric displacement."

The door opened. In walked Evelyn Cross, a veteran family lawyer whose sharp pinstriped suits and icy stare had terrorized junior associates in the metropolitan area for three decades. Behind her came what appeared to be an empty space, except for the distinct scent of ozone, very expensive French lavender perfume, and the faint, shimmering disturbance in the light that looked like heat rising from summer asphalt.

"Arthur," Evelyn said, not offering a handshake as she dropped her leather briefcase onto the chair adjacent to Artie’s side of the table. "I hope you haven’t been filling your client’s head with wild notions about non-marital windfalls. We have provided full financial disclosure in accordance with Form 8-A."

"Form 8-A is an affidavit of assets and liabilities, Evelyn, not an excerpt from creative writing," I replied, gesturing toward the empty armchair beside her. "Madame Mirage, would you care to join us in visible space? The State Bar has an ongoing prejudice against entering appearances by phantom."

The air warped. The ambient light condensed, folding into itself like a silk handkerchief being pulled through a magician’s fist, until a strikingly tall woman in a bespoke charcoal pantsuit materialized in the chair. Her silver hair was pinned into an immaculate French twist, her posture rigid, her grey eyes glittering with cool amusement.

"Good morning, Arthur," she said, her voice smooth and devoid of any localized origin, sounding as though it emanated from all four corners of the room simultaneously. "I hope my husband hasn't been embarrassing himself. He always had a flair for temporal exaggeration."

"Don't start, Nadia," Artie snapped, his coffee mug vibrating audibly against the wood. "I know about the Cayman accounts. Arthur knows about the Cayman accounts."

"What Mr. Pendelton knows is how to invent conspiracy theories based on routine corporate shields," Evelyn interrupted, sliding a thin manila envelope across my blotter. "My client is an independent contractor whose personal brand is inextricably linked to anonymity. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the right of masked and semi-covert operatives to maintain pseudonymity in commercial registrations to prevent retaliatory actions from neutralized combatants."

"A valid doctrine," I conceded, opening the envelope. "Commonly referred to as the St. Jude Exception, allowing enhanced persons to protect private residences and direct dependents from villainous reprisal. However, Evelyn, that protective privilege covers physical security and residential deeds. It has never, in the history of the Fifth Appellate District, covered eighty-four thousand shares of preferred stock in a commercial satellite defense firm being funneled through an shell company while your client’s husband paid for the home heating oil with his sidekick union pension."

Nadia’s eyes narrowed slightly, the air around her lapels shimmering with the faint violet glow that usually preceded complete optical phasing. "Those shares were acquired prior to the commencement of the legal union."

"The options were acquired during the marriage," I countered, pulling out a sheaf of pale-yellow printouts. "Specifically, during the three-week period in October two years ago when you informed Artie you were attending an international peacekeeping summit in Geneva. In reality, you were retained by the Vance-Aero Aerospace Group to test their stealth coating systems at a test facility in White Sands, New Mexico. The compensation was not an honorarium. It was an equity grant valued upon issuance at six hundred and eighty thousand dollars. It is marital property."

"He was asleep in the basement playing video games while I was breathing toxic polyurethanes in the desert!" Nadia’s voice spiked, losing its manufactured serenity. "He was thirty-two years old and calling himself a 'kid'! Do you know what it’s like to be thirty-eight years old and married to an adult who introduces himself at municipal galas as a sidekick?"

"I was your partner!" Artie shouted, his fingers blurring as his arms phased partially through the armrests of his chair before he caught himself and yanked them back into solidity. "I took a direct hit from a plasma cannon in Bucharest for you! I had second-degree burns across seventy percent of my torso so you could slip the dampener collar onto Doctor Malice!"

"And you were compensated through the Department of Extraordinary Services auxiliary fund," Nadia said coldly, brushing an invisible particle of lint from her sleeve. "A generous settlement, as I recall. Which you immediately blew on an obsolete hover-bike you couldn't even tune properly."

"Enough," I said, rapping my knuckles hard on the desk. "We are not arbitrating who took the heavier artillery in the Balkans. This is a discovery conference regarding hidden marital assets. We have the tax records, Evelyn. Or rather, we have the records your client declined to include on her tax returns, which the Department of Revenue will find singularly captivating if we do not resolve this matter within the confines of private mediation."

Evelyn Cross didn’t flinch, but her hands moved slightly closer to her brief. "Are you threatening a referral to the Internal Revenue Service, Arthur? That borders on disciplinary misconduct."

"I am reminding opposing counsel that under Rule 1.6 of the Rules of Professional Conduct, I have an affirmative duty not to participate in the ongoing perpetuation of a financial fraud upon the tribunal," I replied, leaning forward. "Your client took an oath when she signed the preliminary financial declarations. If she wishes to claim that the four million dollars in bearer bonds currently resting in a climate-controlled safety deposit box beneath the Zurich branch of Credit Suisse are 'non-existent due to ambient invisibility,' she may take the stand next Thursday and demonstrate how currency notes become non-taxable simply because she turns them translucent."

Nadia turned her head toward Evelyn. The illusion around her edges frayed for a split second, revealing the stark, exhausted lines around her mouth before she pulled the glamour tight again.

"He wants the lake house," Nadia said, her voice dropping into a hard, flat register.

"The lake house was purchased with your joint earnings," I noted.

"I built that house," she said. "I literally diverted the municipal aqueduct by hand while Artie was distracting the construction union."

"You did that to avoid zoning fees, which is an entirely separate legal hazard," I pointed out. "The fact remains, Nadia: you have systematically diverted seventy-one percent of your auxiliary commercial income since the enactment of the Metahuman Registration and Fair Trade Act. You established a series of shell corporations using what you euphemistically refer to in your initial responses to interrogatories as 'an invisibility clause'—a provision you drafted into your licensing agreements stating that the true beneficiary of the merchandising proceeds could not be revealed even under subpoena, citing public safety."

"The clause was vetted by federal intelligence," Evelyn stated.

"The clause was vetted for defense contracts," I answered, "not for the dissolution of a twelve-year marriage. Under the domestic relations laws of this state, spouses occupy a fiduciary relationship. You cannot invoke national security exemptions to cheat the man who irons your capes out of his half of the secondary market royalties for Madame Mirage action figures."

Artie made a small, choked sound. "There are action figures?"

Nadia rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. "They were only distributed in the Japanese domestic market, Artie. Don't be pathetic."

"I have a right to know if my likeness was bundled in the double-pack!" Artie’s voice was climbing an octave. "Did they package me with the sidecar? Arthur, did they package me with the sidecar?"

"We will address the merchandising likeness splits during the intellectual property inventory next month," I told him, holding up a palm to keep him grounded. "Right now, we are talking about real, liquid capital that has been removed from marital accounts without the knowledge or consent of both parties."

I pulled a single sheet of heavy white cardstock from the front pocket of the file.

"This is an emergency petition for an order of preservation," I said, sliding it toward Evelyn. "It freezes every domestic account associated with Nadia Vance, Evelyn Cross's trust ledger, and every subsidiary corporate alias registered to the physical addresses in Dover, Delaware, and Zurich. If we walk into Judge Vance’s courtroom on Monday morning—no relation to your client, Artie, though he does have a nephew with magnetic tendencies, so he's rarely sympathetic to high-tier vanity—I will ask for a full forensic receivership. The court will appoint a special master. The special master will not care about public identities. They will subpoena the bank managers, they will pierce the corporate shroud, and they will pull every financial statement into the public record."

Nadia stiffened. The shimmer around her became absolute, a violent wave of light that made her chair look entirely empty for a heartbeat before she forced herself back into the visible world.

"A public record?" she whispered. "Do you have any concept of what happens if the Syndicate discovers I have liquid holdings? They will issue liens against my training facilities. They will target my retired associates. They will—"

"They will realize you are subject to the same mundane domestic misery as the dental hygienist down the block," I finished for her. "Which is precisely why you are going to agree to the terms on this settlement outline."

Evelyn picked up the paper, her eyes skimming the lines with the speed of an attorney who has lost the high ground and is currently calculating the cost of an orderly retreat. "This demands forty percent of the offshore holdings."

"Fifty percent," I corrected. "Fifty percent of the confirmed three million four hundred and twenty thousand. Plus thirty-five percent of the residual payments from the Vance-Aero defense patent, held in an irrevocable blind trust for Mr. Vance’s ongoing medical expenses, including his accelerated cellular regeneration therapies."

"Thirty-five percent is punitive," Evelyn countered. "Twenty."

"Thirty," Artie spoke up. His voice didn't waver this time. The vibration had ceased. "Thirty percent, Nadia. And you sign over the clear title to the lake house. The whole thing. You haven't spent a weekend there since the Chicago invasion four years ago. You hate the pine trees. You said the pollen clogged your personal filtration systems."

Nadia stared at him. For the first time since she had walked—or rather, drifted—into my office, she looked at Artie not as an administrative nuisance or a lesser operative, but as a person with leverage. It is a transition I see often in this line of work. The capes, the masks, the cosmic heraldry—they all function as armor against reality until the reality comes printed on eighty-pound bond paper with an official court seal.

"You won't be able to pay the maintenance on the perimeter force field," Nadia said quietly. "It runs on three industrial-grade lithium generators. They need overhauling every eighteen months."

"I have friends in the Machinist Guild," Artie replied. "They owe me. I helped them pull their shop steward out of a localized singularity in Newark last summer."

Silence settled over the office. The hum of the ceiling fan was the only sound, rhythmic and dull, chopping through the warm air. On the desk, the edges of the financial disclosure form fluttered slightly under the draft.

Evelyn took a slim gold pen from her inner pocket. She tapped it twice against the mahogany, looking not at her client, but at me. "If we agree in principle to the division of the Swiss assets and the license assignation, we will require an absolute non-disclosure agreement regarding the corporate entities. No mention of the Delaware filings in any open-court proceedings. The final dissolution decree must refer only to 'confidential marital settlements' entered by private stipulation."

"Naturally," I said. "My client has no interest in publicizing your client’s lack of tax compliance. We simply want the money transferred into an escrow account within seventy-two hours of the judge’s signature."

"Forty-eight," Artie interjected.

I glanced at him. "Seventy-two is standard for international liquidations, Artie. Let’s not borrow trouble with the currency control authorities."

Nadia leaned back. Her hands, long and pale with immaculate, square-cut nails, rested on the armrests. The light around her settled into ordinary, mundane daylight. The goddess of the evening news had vanished; in her place was a woman who had spent twelve years hiding her assets because she had spent twelve years realizing she didn't want to share her life with the boy she’d saved from a collapsed subway tunnel when she was twenty-six.

"Sign it, Evelyn," Nadia whispered. "Give him the house. Give him the thirty percent. But if I find out he took the hover-bike, I'm having it vaporized from orbit."

"The hover-bike," I said, making a brief marginal note on my yellow legal pad, "will be dealt with in the personal property inventory under Section Six. Along with the jet-boots, the atmospheric diving gear, and the autographed photograph of the 1984 All-Star Defense League."

"I get the photo," Artie said immediately. "My uncle took that photo."

"We will discuss the photo in Chapter Sixteen," I said firmly, shutting the folder with a dry snap that sounded remarkably like a small caliber discharge in the quiet office. "For now, the invisibility is lifted. Madame Mirage, Evelyn, I will have the formal stipulation delivered to your chambers by three o'clock. If the escrow confirmation is not in my hands by Monday morning at ten, the master’s hearing proceeds as scheduled."

Evelyn rose, her face an unreadable mask of professional resignation. She snapped her briefcase shut. "A pleasure as always, Arthur. I look forward to the day you retire to write municipal bond ordinances."

"The money is worse, Evelyn, but the clients have fewer thermal weapons," I told her.

Nadia didn't stand immediately. She waited until Evelyn had opened the door, her hand resting on the brass knob. She looked across the desk at Artie, her form flickering once—a sudden, involuntary pulse that showed her skeleton like an X-ray for a fraction of a second before her skin smoothed out into the cool, immaculate visage the public adored.

"You were never fast enough to catch me, Artie," she said softly. "You just thought you were because I slowed down so you wouldn't feel left behind."

Artie didn't drop his eyes. "I wasn't trying to catch you, Nadia. I was trying to keep you from running into the wall."

She didn't answer. She turned, her suit whispering against the leather of the armchair, and followed her counsel into the hallway. The door swung shut behind them, the brass latch clicking home with the absolute finality of an ancient lock.

I let out a slow breath, reached into the lower drawer of my desk, and pulled out two lowball glasses and a bottle of ten-year-old rye. I poured two fingers into each, sliding one across the blotter to the Kid.

Artie picked up the glass. His hand was rock-steady now. The liquid didn't show a single ripple.

"Is it always like that?" he asked, staring at the amber whiskey.

"Only when they have an accountant who understands light-bending," I said, taking a sip. "Drink your rye, Artie. We have sixty-four pages of utility bills for a secret cavern in upstate New York to review before lunch, and according to this preliminary power audit, you were running a hyper-density particle accelerator off the rural electric co-op's residential grid for seven consecutive months."

Artie winced, setting the glass down. "It was for my terrarium. I was trying to breed prehistoric moss."

"Then you’d better hope the judge likes moss," I said, pulling another file from the drawer. "Because the electric company wants thirty-two thousand dollars, and the moss doesn't have an offshore holding company."

The primary distinction between an ordinary marital home and a subterranean headquarters is not the reinforced titanium bulkheads or the concealed egress tunnels drilled into the granite bedrock. It is the zoning classification. The municipal tax assessor has no checkbox on the standard residential property assessment card for Subterranean Staging Area with Class-Four Mag-Lev Rail Access. Consequently, when a superhero couple decides they can no longer share a bed or a mission statement, the fight over the marital real estate becomes an unholy collision between ancient common-law tenancy principles and severe civil engineering hazards.

My two o’clock was Marcus Holloway, an ex-vigilante who had operated for a decade under the moniker Iron Bastion before his lumbar vertebrae and the cost of hydraulic fluid persuaded him to take an executive position at a commercial private security firm. Marcus was built like a reinforced concrete pillar, with broad shoulders that strained against his tweed jacket and silver-threaded temples that gave him the appearance of a very stern college dean who could still bench-press a midsize sedan.

"She’s changed the biometric access codes on the hydraulic garage doors, Arthur," Marcus said, laying a thick manila folder labeled The Bastion-Aegis Facility on my desk. "I drove up to the ridge last Thursday to collect my high-density impact shields and my spare kinetic dampeners. The iris scanner flashed crimson, informed me that my administrative clearance had been revoked by primary account holder Aegis-One, and discharged forty thousand volts of non-lethal deterrent current into the welcome mat."

"Did you suffer any neuromuscular damage?" I asked, flipping open the folder.

"My fillings tasted like galvanized zinc for three hours," Marcus said, rubbing his jaw. "The point is, Arthur, that property was acquired during the third year of our marriage. We cleared the parcel ourselves. Brenda collapsed the cavern ceiling with her concussive strikes, and I laid the foundation slabs by hand. It is jointly titled under our civil identities as tenants by the entirety. She cannot simply flash-fry my footwear and claim sole possession because she has primary access to the master server."

"She can, in fact, do so until a judge enters an order for exclusive temporary possession," I replied, pulling out the deed. "The legal title is relatively clear. The property is deeded to Marcus and Brenda Holloway as husband and wife. However, the deed describes the premises as forty-two acres of undeveloped forestry land zoned for agricultural and light residential use. There is no record on file with the county planning commission regarding the four-story underground facility, the launch silo, or the twenty-megawatt geothermal heat pump you tapped into the dormant volcanic fissure beneath the pantry."

Marcus shifted uncomfortably, the wood of my client chair groaning under his three hundred pounds of dense bone structure. "We didn't file for permits, Arthur. You know how the regional councils operate. If you submit architectural plans for a launch silo, some low-level clerk leaks the blueprint to an underground tabloid, and three days later Doctor Catastrophe is dropping seismic drills straight into your master bedroom. It was classified under the Sovereign Operative Discretionary Doctrine."

"The Sovereign Operative Discretionary Doctrine protects your tactical operations from federal regulatory preemption during an active alien invasion," I explained, leaning over my notes. "It does not exempt you from the county setback requirements, nor does it excuse the failure to obtain a certificate of occupancy for a facility housing an automated perimeter defense grid. If Brenda’s attorney files for an emergency partition by sale, we face a substantial tactical problem."

"We cannot sell it," Marcus said, his gravelly voice dropping an octave. "Who buys a decommissioned lair, Arthur? An eccentric tech executive who wants a wine cellar? Or a re-emerging syndicate boss looking for pre-installed blast doors? If that place hits the public auction block, it’s a national security incident. More to the point, Brenda doesn't even want the garage space. She’s only clinging to the facility because her tactical monitoring rig is hardwired into the central column."

"Let us discuss the monitoring rig," I said. "Is it a fixture or personal property?"

Marcus stared at me as though I had spoken to him in Ancient Sumerian. "It’s the Aegis Array. It monitors satellite telemetry across twelve sectors."

"I don't care if it monitors the migration patterns of archangels," I said patiently. "Under the law of real property, the question is whether the device is permanently affixed to the freehold such that its removal would cause material structural damage to the underlying premises. If it is bolted down and integral to the building's operating systems, it is a fixture and runs with the land. If it can be unplugged and hauled away on a flatbed trailer without cracking the load-bearing masonry, it is personal property subject to equitable distribution."

"It is set into twelve feet of poured tungsten-carbide," Marcus said flatly. "If she tries to pull the main console out, she will destabilize the entire western retaining wall of the staging bay. The mountain will take the lower level."

"Then Brenda has an exceedingly strong argument that the array is a fixture of the marital residence," I said, making a margin notation. "Which means that if she is awarded the physical real estate, she takes the array as part of the structure, leaving you with an offset credit. The issue, of course, is how to value a facility that technically does not exist on the county tax rolls."

The intercom on my desk gave its customary twin chirp. I pressed the bronze toggle. "Yes, Mrs. Gable?"

"Counselor Rebecca Stone is here with Mrs. Holloway," my receptionist announced. "They have brought three plastic containers of blueprint scrolls and what appears to be an armed security drone hovering above Mrs. Holloway’s shoulder. I have instructed them that the drone must remain in the vestibule."

"Did they comply?"

"Mrs. Holloway deactivated its proximity sensors after I threatened it with my umbrella," Mrs. Gable reported calmly. "They are coming in."

The heavy oak door swung open to admit Rebecca Stone, a rising star in high-asset litigation who had made her reputation handling the messy breakups of corporate magnates and celebrity influencers before expanding her practice to the costumed sector. Following close behind was Brenda Holloway, known in global defense bulletins as Aegis. She was an athletic woman of forty, dressed in a sharp ivory blazer with trousers cut to accommodate the athletic boots she favored. Her hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail, and her posture was that of a woman accustomed to taking direct hits from supersonic artillery without blinking.

"Marcus," Brenda said curtly, taking the armchair farthest from her husband. "Arthur."

"Good afternoon, Brenda," I said, gesturing toward the conference table behind us. "Rebecca. Let us save time on posturing. The maintenance overhead on your joint real property is roughly forty-seven thousand dollars a month, mostly attributable to the coolant systems required to keep your auxiliary fusion reactor from cooking the neighborhood water table. Neither of your clients has drawn an active operational stipend from the municipal defense guild in sixteen months. Who is going to keep the lair?"

Rebecca Stone set a pristine leather document folio on the mahogany. "My client is prepared to assume sole title to the residential acreage and the subsurface improvements, Arthur. She has established an independent tactical consultancy that requires access to the secure comms relays. Mr. Holloway has transitioned to a corporate advisory desk in the commercial district. He has no professional necessity for thirty-six thousand square feet of subterranean staging facilities."

"I poured the concrete, Rebecca," Marcus growled, his knuckles white against the desk. "I dug out the drainage ditches with an entrenching tool while Brenda was in Monaco attending an intelligence symposium."

"And my client paid the servicing fees on the industrial excavation equipment with her private appearance fees," Rebecca replied without missing a beat. "We have the cancelled checks. Furthermore, Marcus’s current occupation does not require a localized perimeter shield or an underground vehicle launch ramp. What is he going to do with a hydraulic catapult? Launch his company sedan into the morning commute?"

"The catapult is an asset," Marcus snapped. "It was custom-fabricated by German engineers. It has an appraised residual value of eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

"It’s an attractive nuisance," Rebecca countered, leaning forward. "Two weeks ago, a trespassing teenager slipped through your defunct perimeter fence, tripped the pressure-sensitive magnetic rail, and was propelled three hundred yards into the neighboring cow pasture. The farmer is currently threatening a tort claim for three dead heifers and severe structural damage to his silo. That is a joint marital liability, Marcus."

"The fence was Brenda’s responsibility," Marcus said. "She promised to recalibrate the sensor field before the frost set in."

"I was running an intercept operation against atmospheric smugglers over Hudson Bay!" Brenda said, her voice rising to the dry, crackling register that usually preceded a kinetic discharge. "I am sorry that maintaining the electric cattle wire slipped my mind while I was saving the eastern seaboard from dirty-bomb fallout!"

"You were also avoiding the plumbing inspection," I observed, interjecting before the temperature in the room could climb further. "Let us look at the financial realities. Brenda, your consultancy generated two hundred and ten thousand dollars in gross receipts last year. That is a respectable income for an independent security operator. It is not, however, sufficient to cover the utility overhead on a facility designed to withstand a tactical thermonuclear strike."

Brenda crossed her arms, her jaw tightening. "The geothermal system is self-sustaining."

"The geothermal system is leaking heavy water into the township’s drainage basin," I told her, sliding a municipal environmental report across the desk. "The Department of Environmental Protection issued a notice of violation three weeks ago. Because the deed lists the property under your civilian identities, the fine is assessed against both of you as joint owners. It is currently accumulating at twelve hundred dollars per diem."

Brenda glanced down at the paper, then threw an irritated look at Rebecca. Her counsel remained impassive, though a tiny furrow appeared between her brows.

"We were unaware of the municipal notice," Rebecca admitted smoothly. "However, that is an operational cost that can be capitalized. Our position remains that the facility cannot be divided. It is a single, integrated subsurface installation. Marcus cannot expect to occupy the eastern barracks while Brenda runs operations in the western tactical bay. The domestic proximity would inevitably lead to further disputes, and frankly, my client is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of her professional workspace."

"The doctrine of equitable distribution does not require physical partition where partition would result in waste or severe prejudice to the parties," I noted. "We agree that you cannot cut a command bunker down the middle with a plasma torch and call it a day. But if your client wishes to retain the property, Rebecca, she must buy out Marcus’s fifty-percent equity interest in the underlying real estate and the capital improvements."

"We are prepared to offer an equity buyout based on the fair market value of forty-two acres of undeveloped agricultural land," Rebecca said.

Marcus let out a short, bitter laugh that rattled the pens in my desk organizer. "Undeveloped? There is an Olympic-sized decompression chamber down there! There’s an armory with six-inch vault doors!"

"None of which has a certificate of occupancy," Rebecca said, her voice dropping into the cool, calculated cadence of an experienced litigator pressing an advantage. "Under state law, improvements constructed without permits, in violation of local zoning ordinances, and without structural inspection cannot be factored into the fair market appraisal of the freehold. If we bring a court-appointed appraiser down that access shaft, Arthur, the first thing he will do is call the county building inspector. The inspector will issue a stop-work and condemnation order. The entire facility will be condemned, filled with slurry concrete at the owners’ expense, and your client’s purported 'equity' will instantly transform into an eight-figure demolition liability."

Marcus went silent. His broad face paled slightly as the reality of the regulatory trap closed in on him. This is the vulnerability that haunts every enhanced individual who decides to play municipal engineer: the laws of physics may bend to their wills, but the Uniform Building Code does not.

"A clever maneuver, Rebecca," I said, leaning back in my chair. "And entirely accurate, provided you are willing to accept the corollary."

Rebecca’s eyes narrowed. "Which corollary?"

"The doctrine of unclean hands," I said, tapping the desk blotter with a silver pen. "If Brenda asserts that the subterranean facility is an illegal structure devoid of market value, then her consultancy business—which operates exclusively from that same unpermitted installation—is conducting commercial activities in a hazardous, non-conforming, and uninsurable space. Furthermore, Brenda’s federal security clearance is contingent upon maintaining an operational base that satisfies Department of Defense Tier-Three physical security standards. A condemned bunker does not satisfy Tier-Three standards. If the county condemns the property, Marcus loses his imaginary equity, yes. But Brenda loses her defense contracts, her security credentials, and her entire commercial livelihood by lunchtime on Tuesday."

Brenda reached out, her fingers pressing into the edge of my mahogany desk with enough residual force to leave an indentation in the polish. "Are you threatening my clearance, Arthur?"

"I am explaining the mechanics of mutual assured legal destruction," I replied, holding her gaze. "You two spent twelve years operating as a coordinated tactical unit. You know that if one of you breaches the perimeter, both of you take the shrapnel. This divorce is no different. You cannot use the secret nature of the lair to shield yourself from paying Marcus his share of the investment, just as Marcus cannot pretend the facility is a luxury condominium with an easily liquidated market value."

The office went very quiet. Outside, an elevated train rattled along the avenue, its low-frequency vibration shivering through the floorboards. Brenda looked at Marcus. For a moment, the professional hostility dropped away, replaced by the deep, exhausted familiarity of two people who had pulled each other out of dozens of smoking craters only to find themselves cornered by property law.

"What do you propose, Arthur?" Brenda asked, her voice dropping its combative edge.

"A bifurcated property stipulation," I said, pulling a fresh legal pad toward me. "First, the surface rights. The forty-two acres of forestry land are retained solely by Marcus. It is unencumbered, clear of violations, and provides a stable asset base that he can borrow against or preserve as he sees fit. He takes the perimeter land and the surface access rights."

"And the facility?" Rebecca asked.

"The subsurface facility is carved out and transferred into a commercial land trust," I explained, sketching a quick schematic on the yellow paper. "The trust will be owned fifty-fifty by two separate corporate entities: Marcus’s security consultancy and Brenda’s tactical firm. Brenda receives a ninety-nine-year commercial ground lease for the lower levels, giving her exclusive operational possession of the array, the staging bay, and the command center. In exchange, she assumes sole responsibility for all ongoing maintenance, utilities, environmental remediation, and regulatory compliance, indemnifying Marcus entirely against future municipal actions."

"And what does Marcus get out of this arrangement?" Rebecca asked, leaning over the paper. "A half-interest in a trust that yields no residential utility?"

"Marcus receives a triple-net ground rent payment," I said. "Brenda pays the trust eight thousand dollars a month for the operational lease. The trust distributes four thousand of that directly to Marcus as passive rental income, tax-deductible to Brenda’s business, taxable to him as commercial lease revenue. In addition, Marcus retains exclusive storage and salvage rights to the secondary dry-dock and the workshop in Sub-Level Three, which has its own independent egress onto the eastern logging road."

Marcus frowned, his brow furrowing as he calculated the layout. "Sub-Level Three has the secondary power conduit. But the blast door between Three and Two is currently welded shut."

"Then you will un-weld it," I said. "And install a permanent, physical firewall meeting commercial separation codes. Brenda keeps her command center; Marcus keeps his machine shop. The environmental remediation on the geothermal fissure will be capitalized through a small business loan taken by the trust, secured solely against the subsurface commercial lease revenues, keeping both of your personal credit ratings clean."

Brenda leaned back, studying the ceiling for several seconds. "The launch catapult?"

"The catapult is dismantled," I said firmly. "The scrap titanium is sold on the open market, and the proceeds are applied directly toward curing the Department of Environmental Protection’s heavy-water lien. You do not need a catapult to run satellite analytics, Brenda, and Marcus does not need to be sued every time a heifer wanders onto the property."

Rebecca Stone tapped her pen against her chin, looking at the numbers I had scribbled. She glanced at her client. "Arthur’s framework provides a path to keep the site operational without triggering a county inspection. It insulates your federal clearance, Brenda, and it avoids an immediate cash buyout that your business cannot currently finance."

Brenda turned to Marcus. "You’d have to keep your salvage out of the central tunnel. I can’t have your tow trucks blocking my satellite line-of-sight during emergency deployments."

"I haven't driven a tow truck in eight years, Brenda," Marcus said, his tone softening slightly. "And I don't care about your satellites. I just want my tools, my fabrication tables, and a place where I can work on hydraulic systems without the municipal power company asking why my drill presses dim the streetlights in the township."

"You’ll have your space," Brenda said. "Provided you sign the indemnification on the environmental fine."

"I’ll sign the indemnification," Marcus agreed, "if you agree to stop rerouting the surplus coolant into my workshop radiators. It smells like sulfur, Brenda. It’s smelled like sulfur since 2018."

"That wasn't coolant," Brenda said flatly. "That was the soil sample from the New Jersey dimensional rift you insisted on storing under your workbench."

"Enough," I said, capping my pen with a decisive snap. "The rift samples are classified under Section Sixteen, hazardous personal property. We will resolve those when we inventory the trophy room. For today, we have settled the lair."

I tore the top sheet from the yellow pad and handed it to Rebecca Stone.

"Draft the land trust instruments by Friday, Rebecca," I instructed. "Use the standard commercial shell templates. Keep the tactical descriptors out of the filings; describe the subterranean space as a high-density geological data preservation archive. The county clerks see that phrase and their eyes glaze over instantly. They won't ask for an inspection, and they won't look for launch silos."

Rebecca took the paper, folded it neatly, and placed it inside her leather folio. She rose, smoothing her skirt. "A workable compromise, Arthur. My office will produce the draft by Thursday afternoon."

Brenda stood up, looking down at Marcus. The tension that had held her frame rigid throughout the meeting seemed to dissipate, leaving behind only the weary resignation of an operative who had just negotiated an uneasy armistice in a theater where she had once expected total victory.

"Don't lose the keys to the eastern logging gate, Marcus," she said quietly. "The lock is five hundred years old. You can't pick it with a magnetic bypass."

"I don't need to pick it," Marcus replied, looking up at her. "I’m the one who forged the brass plate."

Brenda gave a single, tight nod, turned without another word, and walked toward the reception foyer, her boots making a sharp, steady rhythm against the parquet floor. Rebecca followed her, pausing at the threshold to offer me a brief, professional nod before closing the heavy door behind them.

Marcus Holloway sat in the silence of my office for a long time, listening to the muffled street noise drifting up from three stories below. He reached out, picked up the thick blue file detailing forty-two acres of disputed mountain granite, and turned it over in his large, scarred hands.

"A data preservation archive," he muttered, shaking his head. "Arthur, we fought two world-ending threats from that cavern. We rebuilt the tracking grid while the sky was literally burning green over Lake Erie. Now it’s a high-density geological archive."

"That is the nature of peace, Marcus," I said, reaching into the lower desk drawer and sliding the rye bottle and his tumbler across the green felt. "The crisis passes, the world doesn't end, and the state still expects you to pay the transfer tax on the septic system."

Marcus poured himself three fingers, the glass looking tiny in his massive grip. He raised it toward me, his face impassive once more.

"To equitable distribution," he said dryly.

"To zoning compliance," I corrected, clinking my glass against his. "Drink up, Marcus. Next week we deal with the Boy Wonder's boarding school tuition, and according to your preliminary disclosures, your former ward has developed an expensive taste for titanium-alloy archery sets and private orbital tutoring."